cognizant
by OddVisions
Summary: It's difficult to live in a world of ignorance. That must be made especially true for those whom have done it for longer than most have been alive.


**A/N: Toby Fox owns Undertale and all of its characters. I just wanted to write serious Sans being serious because it was the middle of the night and it seemed like a pretty good idea at the time.**

Sans was old. He was very old. Sans was a near ancient relic in a place that didn't age with him. The monsters he knew didn't bare the burden he did. They didn't have to deal with the hollow understanding of how everything at the beginning of it all is just the same as it is at the end. But, it gets lonely having that kind of knowledge. The knowledge that, when it comes down to it, everything was always going to be the same. Nothing would change. Why? Because of a small child with a hand barely big enough to cover his phillangs.

San's choices. His brother's choices. The individual choices made by any monster in the mountain didn't matter. Only the child's did. Much like how a child is want to do, this small being played at peace and toyed with war. The kid wrought not only revolution but also revolt.

He had thought once, that she knew fully what she was doing. That, as he grew through his time of horrible knowledge around him, so was she. After a few years, it became obvious to the skeleton that the kid resetting his life, his brother's life, even his friends lives, over and over again had little more than an inkling of memories from when they'd done this dance before.

That knowledge is a dusting to the heart of a lonely monster. Only he was made to suffer through memory as it ate away at him. Perhaps only he could. Then again, his brother did work in favor of a solace to his red heart.

The skeleton found himself contemplating what the end of a circle must look like. It was probably like that of a mirror staring into the face of another mirror. The end, if there were one, was a distorted finale at best. At worst, he didn't even want to think what could be worse.

His brother got the worst of it all. To be stabbed by someone you trust must be painful to go through. It must be even more painful to go through that a hundred times over. His brother was at least lucky enough to suffer the blissful amnesia granted to the rest of the underground. Sans did not want to think of all the coffins he would need to ury each of his brother's; dead from the past.

It never gets easier for Sans to watch his brother's dust fly away in the snow. In the judgement hall, his anger is just as unrestrained as it was the first time. That anger never goes away. Even when he stares at a child that wants nothing more than to go home once more as they emerge from the old ruins.

Sans wished the child could understand the blood on their hands. That would make this all a little easier for him. It's hard to be angry at a child when they haven't done what you're mad at them for. Sans himself is still confused about how he should feel about the kid. He can't help not trusting them. Even when they wish nothing but peace for him, he knows it won't last. Sans briefly wondered once how the parents of tyrants must've felt when they learned how evil their young could be. He imagined it was a similar feeling.

Sans still tells jokes to everyone. He's told the same joke more than a few times to the same pattern. Everyone laughs. Everyone except Papyrus. His brother will complain about the pun. It will be funny and new to them. To Sans, it would be instead a reminder that he was constantly trapped into this purgatory of a loop. All because of a child.

The skeleton laughed. He laughed in the middle of the woods when he knew no monster was looking. He laughed until he choked and then he would cough up nothing. It's all he could do when faced with the burden of a life he hadn't asked for.

No. Sans would've been much happier if he were made to be as blissfully unaware as everyone else. His heaven was nothing short of an endless loop of time he could neglect and ignore in favor of just enjoying his time with his brother and the monsters of Snowdin. Instead, he lived in a purgatory of waiting for something that had stopped to move forward. Yet, it repeated itself. Like that circle. Like a mirror facing another.

Sans did not get this luxury of ignorant timelessness. His body stays but his mind does not. Maybe one day soon, it will have gone from him completely. He dreads the thought of his brother waking up to seeing him a shell of a skeleton. He thinks maybe one day he will just crawl further into the woods around snowdin and disappear. He wants to just give up completely and let this go on forever. It seems like it already has.

The judgement hall appeared before him once more. In this moment, the child has come in peace. This time, no dust has dirtied their palms. Before he can say his lines. He's practiced them over and over in the same way. He can't help but wonder, since he keeps doing this, can monsters be determined too? He thinks back to his brother's scarf snuggly muffling his grin. He thinks of the unknowing child before him. Before he knows it, he's got his answer.


End file.
